The Butterfly Net
by skywideopen
Summary: So Henry had run away again—but of course he had, blood-and-flesh offspring of Emma Swan as he was. She knew a thing or two about running away. And running away from a world convinced that you're crazy—oh, she definitely knew more than a thing or two about that. [Canon divergence AU: Regina meets Emma briefly when Emma is six. Consequences ensue. Slow burn SQ.]
1. Chapter 1

**Good evening, new fandom. I've wanted to write basically since I binge-watched the whole show early last month, but it took me a while to actually settle on an idea I liked that no one else had (to my knowledge) covered. Basic ground rule for this story—at least, the early part of it: if I don't write about it, assume it happens as on the show up to unimportant and/or easily-guessed details, so we can all save time by looking at the bits which _aren't_ the same. It should quickly be clear that most of said bits which aren't the same relate to Emma, her backstory and her worldview.**

 **September 1990**

This had to be the worst idea she's had in a very, very long time.

It had always been a possibility that it would turn out this way, of course—one thing Regina had learned very quickly upon her arrival in this realm, this strange world without magic was that it was far, far vaster than she had anticipated, on a scale and complexity beyond her immediate comprehension. At first, this had rather unnerved her, this idea that her kingdom, her victory, had been reduced to little more than a tiny—invisible, to be precise—speck on the map in one state of one country in a very big world.

But of course, there was that whole __invisibility__ aspect—and since those first days, with that child and his father, not a single person had entered Storybrooke from the outside world. No one came, no one left, nothing ever changed in her— _ _her—__ bubble of a town she'd created, not unless she wanted it to.

She'd won, and that was enough _—_ wasn't it?

Well, if her current predicament was any indication, it should have been, and she was a fool to have ever been curious for more.

She huffed, twisting her neck around to peer at the irritatingly non-descript street signs. __Peters Street, East Road__ _—_ she bit down on a tired groan. What use was that when she didn't have so much as a __map?__ Or a locator spell? Not that the latter would work, of course, not unless her Mercedes-Benz counted as an actual person (which, in fairness, it could, based on the fact that it was more useful than the overwhelming majority of __actual__ people). Not to mention that she hadn't brought any with her on the curse-bound voyage to this land _—_ and the only magic that worked in this realm was only that which she had brought with her. Like, for example, the silver enchanted bracelet that held just enough stored magic for her to poof herself back to her car _ _...__ if only she knew where it was.

There was no other way to put it: Regina Mills, victorious Queen and Mayor, was lost in Boston.

She hadn't __meant__ to get lost, of course. All she'd wanted to do was visit the city and gain some understanding of the world she'd deposited her kingdom into. But whilst photographs and maps had given her an intellectual sense of just how much larger Boston was than Storybrooke, nothing could have prepared her for actually __being__ here _—_ the concrete-steel-glass behemoths towering up, up, high into the pale blue; the endless cacophony of honking horns, roaring engines, animated conversations; the __people__. So, so, so many people, none of whom paid the slightest attention to the monarch from another realm.

It was overwhelming and she _—_ well, she'd been overwhelmed.

She'd continued to wander from street to street for the last three hours in an attempt to regain her orientation, as the bright spring sun slowly lowered into a spring twilight, becoming more and more infuriated with her ever-worsening predicament. She'd walked until her feet had all but given out from under her, and now she was here, exhausted against a brick wall in a world she barely understood—

"Excuse me, miss, are you lost?"

Regina looked down to see curious green eyes, belonging to a blonde girl of no more than six, peering up at her. She blinked, then put on her most Mayoral smile. "Hello, young one. Why do you think I'm lost?"

"You look lost," the girl said simply _—_ to a six-year-old, everything was probably simple. She held out a hand. "My name is Emma. What's yours?"

Regina's mouth fell open slightly, more than a little baffled by the child's… __forwardness__. In another realm, in another time, no one would have—

But she wasn't there right now, was she? She was here, in __this__ world, and she was very, very lost.

She smiled and shook the girl's hand, gripping as firmly as she dared given that little Emma was six.

"My name is Regina."

* * *

 **September 2012**

Emma Swan was pissed off.

This wasn't exactly unusual for her _—_ Jessica had once joked that she had two modes: pissed off and __really__ pissed off _—_ but tonight she was seriously pissed off.

Okay, she was __less__ pissed off now that she'd turned that asshole in, and breaking his nose had helped to boil off a little of the steam between her ears _—_

"Wait, wait. Your broke his __nose?__ " Jess interrupted through the phone on the passenger's seat next to Emma. It was on speaker, meaning she could keep her eyes on the road as she made her way through the still-packed streets of inner-city Boston _—_ she wasn't __that__ bad a driver.

Emma laughed below her breath, a thin sort of chuckle. Maybe not so pissed off after all. "Yeah. Felt good."

"Remind me never to spill wine on your dress." Yeah. Because __that__ was what this had been about. Of course.

 _ _What the hell do you know about family, huh—__ she shook her head.

"Couldn't he just have not run in the first place? Or come quietly? I would have _—_ I mean, I wouldn't have broken his nose then."

"He was a mark. Not your boyfriend."

"Wanted to be, though." She remembered how he'd eyed her from head to toe, leering at her chest and hips for way too long, like she was—"Ugh. Why did I have to bring him in on my birthday?"

"Pretty sure that was __your__ idea in the first place."

"Yeah, yeah." she grumbled. "Not like I had anything else to do."

A slight pause. "We could go out for a drink if you'd like. Or a coffee."

She bit her lower lip. She'd __like__ to, but __...__ it was already past eight, her dress had an ugly dark streak on it, and she _—_ "I'll see you tomorrow, Jess."

She almost _—_ __almost__ _—_ heard a sigh from the other end. "Take care, Em. Happy birthday."

She drove on for about another twenty minutes in silence, parking her Bug beneath the half-illuminated concrete mass of her apartment block. The lift was out, so she took the many steps up to her fifth floor apartment, the repetitive clicking of her heels on the polished concrete the only noise to be heard. As always, the only lights on when she finally reached her apartment were the ones she turned on herself.

Once inside, she removed her heels (and thank goodness for that) and took out the one indulgence he'd allowed herself on her own birthday: a small white cupcake, lit by a single star candle she'd bought this morning.

"Another banner year," she murmured to the silently dancing flame, resting her chin on a silver bracelet on her wrist, the candlelight flickering off the thin plastic. Maybe this year, __this__ year, that little bracelet would— _ _no__.

Magic couldn't give her what she wanted, not after twenty-two years. Even so, she exhaled, closed her eyes, blew out the flame, made a wish—

The doorbell rang.

* * *

 _ _Emma looked up at the dark-haired woman curiously as they shook hands, her grip strong and firm (for a six year old, at least).__

" _ _I like your name. Regina is a nice name," she said brightly. The woman simply blinked, her mouth repeatedly opening and closing.__

" _ _Thank you," Regina replied, wringing her hands as if rubbing something off them. "Where are your parents, Emma?"__

 _ _Emma shrugged; the adults in her home, she knew by now that she was supposed to call them her parents, but—"They'll find me." She paused briefly, circling around to her original train of thought. "So are you lost?"__

 _ _Regina sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly. "I suppose I am. This—this city is very large, and I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with—"__

" _ _Do you have a car?" Emma asked, only to earn a reproving glare so sharp she almost recoiled backwards—almost.__

" _ _You shouldn't talk while others are talking, Emma," Regina said, her voice firm but not—not unkind. "But yes, I have a car. Unfortunately, it seems that I've... I'm not sure where it is."__

 _ _Emma gazed at her for a moment, lips pursed, before beaming up at Regina. "I'm good at finding things. I'll help you find your car. And help you be not lost."__

 _ _And before Regina so much as had a chance to react, the child had grabbed her hand and was pulling down the street to the sound of whistling—__

—whistling?

She opened her eyes, jerked awake by the unnatural noise. She sat up immediately as she filled with early-morning adrenaline, noting the small, hard cot beneath her, the brick walls, the metal bars in front of her—

She suppressed a groan. __A jail cell.__ She was in a jail cell.

Well, it wasn't the first time she'd woken up in jail the day after her birthday. Although on previous occasions there had been good—or, at least, comprehensible—reasons for her to be there. Those had usually been alcohol related, but she didn't __feel__ hungover, and she certainly hadn't been drunk yesterday. One apple cider— _ _the best apple cider you've ever tasted__ , and it had been no lie—wasn't enough to get her buzzed, let alone _ _drunk.__

She stood, her head still throbbing with the complaints of a sleep prematurely broken. There were two others in the room with her: a grizzled, grumpy-looking man in the adjacent jail cell called Leroy ( _ _Liam? Larry?__ She didn't quite catch it), and a kindly janitor who, apparently, knew who she was ( _ _already?__ ) and was patently delighted about her entirely unintended incursion into her birth son's life.

"Actually, I was just dropping him off," she corrected him, rubbing her still rubbery-feeling forehead. She tuned out of the conversation, trying to recollect the events of the past twelve hours. Apparently, her birth son—whose existence she had essentially buried for the best part of a decade—had found her, was called Henry, and had dragged her across two state borders, telling her excitably the whole way about fairytales and curses and a saviour and all these other things that couldn't __possibly__ be true. Nevertheless the kid believed in it—just like she had. Just like she had.

She'd kept her mouth shut the entire way.

 _ _Then__ she'd met Henry's adoptive ( _ _actual?__ ) mother, the rather severe, dark-haired Mayor who had seemed simultaneously intimidating and... oddly familiar. Unnervingly so—despite the fact that Emma hadn't even caught her name.

Henry was certainly half-right about one other thing: this town was a weird, weird place. One that she would certainly not miss once she got out of this stupid jail cell. The jail cell she had been presumably shoved in by the man who had just entered the room. Emma glared at the Sherriff—Graham, she remembered—as he let out Leroy, before turning to her.

"Seriously?"

He spread his palms in what she guessed was his way of saying sorry without really apologising. "Regina's drinks: a little stronger than we thought."

 _ _Regina.__ That was the weirdly-familiar Mayor's name. Like the woman from her dream, like the woman who—

She blinked, forcing the errant train of thought off her rails. She was twenty-eight as of yesterday, not __six.__ "I wasn't drunk. There was a wolf on the road," she explained and okay, she couldn't even blame Graham for looking sceptical.

"A wolf."

She opened her mouth to explain in more detailed and hopefully more believable terms, but she was overcut by a breathless, panicked voice entering the room, swiftly followed by the Mayor whom Emma now knew as Regina.

They both froze momentarily, equally taken aback by the other's presence.

Regina was the first to regain her voice. "What is she doing here? Do you know where Henry is?"

Emma sighed. So Henry had run away again—but of course he had, blood-and-flesh offspring of Emma Swan as he was. She knew a thing or two about running away.

And running away from a world convinced that you're crazy—oh, she definitely knew more than a thing or two about that.

* * *

It took Emma—having bargained her services for her release—the bulk of the morning to find Henry. Apparently the kid had tracked him down using a specialised website, paid for using a stolen credit card... which, okay, was credit card fraud in a more than technical sense and the sort of thing that she'd be all over like the proverbial ton of bricks in a professional capacity. Still, despite the exasperated sighs, she couldn't help glow with more than a little pride as a result. The kid had—well, maybe not __good__ genes, but her genes at the very least.

She'd met the unwitting victim of said credit card fraud immediately afterwards, an expressly kind—if expressly thoughtless—schoolteacher named Mary Margaret. She'd mused that Henry's troubles stemmed from his status as adopted and abandoned—and hence, __thoughtless.__ Still, the explanation definitely made sense, and a lot of it: constructing a whole world's worth of explanations as to why Emma would __give him away__ , in Mary Margaret's words, was definitely something adopted kids did. Hell, she'd seen it in foster care—she'd done it herself back in the distant past.

But no. Henry didn't believe in his fairytale curse because he wanted to—in fact, the opposite was true. She could tell the difference; although she still had to run a simple test to confirm her theory once she'd found him, down at a small playground by the sea.

"You left this in my car," she told him as she sat next to him, handing over the thick, leatherbound storybook as their legs swung over the edge. She gazed over to the broken clocktower. "Still hasn't moved, huh?"

"I was hoping that when I brought you back, things would change here. That the final battle would begin."

She sighed. "I'm not fighting any battles, kid." Except with—well, with things too vast and complicated to describe in a few words to a ten-year-old.

"Yes you are. Because it's your __destiny__. You're going to bring back the happy endings."

Damn, the kid really, really believed in this __book__. "Can you—" She stopped herself, her brain red-flagging her tongue before it could complete the sentence. "Can I ask you something? About that book of yours."

His face brightened at once. "Sure."

"It—your mom. It says she's—"

"The Evil Queen." He nodded somberly, his face a picture of seriousness.

And Emma felt __absurd,__ but—"Right. But she still loves you, yeah?"

"No!" It was a half-yell, too quick to be anything other than utterly sincere, and—oh, __shit__. "She can't love me. She's evil."

Emma breathed in once, breathed out once. Okay. Maybe her theory wasn't so good, maybe this really __was__ just a construction to help him deal with his mother—both of them, in fact. "What about you? Do you love her?"

A pause. A fidget. Two fingers running down the side of the leather backing of the book. "No," he said, stiff, almost mechanical.

 _ _Bingo.__ "Remember my superpower, kid?"

More fidgeting. "She's __evil.__ " But this time it was mumbled, eyes downcast, totally lacking the conviction from before. As if he was talking to himself more than her.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. "She's your mom." She pushed herself off the playground. "Come on, let's go."

"But—no!" He followed immediately, darting around in front of her to block her path back to the Bug. "Please don't take me there. Just stay with me for one week. That's all I ask. One week, and you'll see I'm not crazy."

She froze.

 _ _You'll see I'm not crazy—__

 _ _It's all real—__

 _ _Why don't you believe me—__

The words echoed in her head, rebounding over and over, mixing and merging with voices she hadn't heard in __years.__ She squatted down, meeting her son's eyes on a dead level plane. "I don't think you're crazy."

His eyes widened, sparkling as hopeful surprise overtook his face. "So you believe me?"

She pursed her lips, studying his open, hopeful features, unalike yet alike her own, and placed both hands on his shoulder-blades. "One week. Deal?"

"Deal."

* * *

The call came just after dinner as she settled into her abode for the next week at the local bed-and-breakfast. Whilst it wasn't a surprise, the caller ID still produced an unpleasant twist in her stomach. __Fuck.__

"Hi, Jess."

"So where the __fuck__ have you been?"

And Jess made fun of __Emma's__ temper. Still, Emma couldn't help but feel like a shitty excuse of a business partner, having run off three hundred miles and made her deal with all their clients on her own. "It's a long story."

" _ _Emma.__ "

She sighed. "Fine. Short version? My kid who I hadn't seen in ten years shows up at my apartment, drags me to Maine, makes me promise to stay a week."

A long, multi-second silence. "You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Your son. The one you gave away."

She locked her jaw silently, the hard reality of that fact having failed to dull its edge over the course of the day. "Yeah." She twirled one of her blonde locks around a finger. "Sorry about, y'know, today."

"It's fine," Jess immediately replied, although her voice still retained a little of her previous irritation. "How is he?"

"He's..." She paused, biting her lip. "We've really only just met. I barely know him at all. His name's Henry."

"And parents? I mean—" Jess instantly corrected herself, a hint of bashfulness creeping in through the line. "Does he have parents?"

"He has a mother—an adoptive mother, I mean. She's actually the Mayor."

"Jesus. Is she one of those super-uptight types?"

Emma snorted, remembering the confrontation she'd had with Regina after she'd dropped Henry back at the house for the second time in less than a full day. Strict she could understand, protective made sense, but __I will destroy you if it is the last thing I do—__ "And then some. Serious piece of work."

"Shit. Well, you have fun with that," Jess said, irritation now replaced entirely by amusement. "Oh, and Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm happy for you."

Emma sat up slightly, her brow creasing. "What—really?" What happened to __where the fuck have you been?__

"You got family for your birthday. It doesn't get better than that."

She settled back down, a lazy smile now painted across her features. "Yeah. I guess so. Bye, Jess."

"Take care, Em."

She ended the call and placed her cellphone on her bedside table, the smile having failed to leave her face. She turned over onto her side and readied herself to sleep—but before she closed her eyes, she dug out her right wrist from under her and held it before her eyes. The bracelet, silver, glittering, seemed to shine even in the dim moonlight streaming through the open window. The bracelet she'd made a wish on, not twenty-four hours in the past.

"I was right," she murmured, stroking a finger across its circumference, her smile reflecting a deep, fierce warmth that she couldn't place from memory. "I was right all along."


	2. Chapter 2

When Emma had turned ten, she'd been moved to a new group home—the last one, as it would turn out, that she would be subjected to in Boston at the very least. As usual, she'd been frankly terrified upon moving in, having long learned that the pecking order in a group home wasn't necessarily determined by age, but by _time—_ time spent living in the home. At ten, she'd been on the lower end of the age spectrum, and at the very lowest end of the time spectrum. Oh, and she had already been tagged as _that crazy girl_ , with all the pleasantness that inevitably brought.

And hence: terrified.

She hadn't shown it, though. She'd known already that group home kids zeroed in on overt fear like sharks to blood—and besides, she was Emma Swan. When stripped down to her basics—for example, when she was scared out of her mind—Emma was nothing but fight or flight and, well, only one of those options had been available to her.

Unfortunately, _wanting_ to fight didn't translate to being _able_ to fight, and for the first few weeks—well. She'd survived. That was the best that could have been said of it.

That was until the oldest, most intimidating boy in the home—most of a man, really: sixteen, tattooed, on his way to six foot, and with a seemingly congenital scowl—had forcibly yanked her aside, laughed at her pitiful attempts to get away, and told her something she'd never, ever forgotten.

"You want to fight, Swan? Here's how you fight: hit first, hit hard, hit where it hurts. That's all you need to know."

It was possibly the most important piece of advice Emma Swan had ever received.

* * *

Unfortunately, on this occasion, Emma had rather failed at item number one: hitting first.

In fact, depending on your point of view, you could say she hadn't even gotten the first _two_ hits in. Though she supposed that, technically, Regina turning up to the bed-and-breakfast the following morning with a basket full of blood-red honeycrisp apples fell more into the _obvious threat_ category, albeit an unconvincing one ( _seriously, apples?_ ). If anything, it had the exact opposite effect—particularly when Regina had declared that Henry was in therapy.

"Therapy." Emma's jaw had locked so rapidly she was half-afraid she would crack something.

"Yes. Therapy," Regina said, a thin, utterly mirthless smile on her face. "You see, Miss Swan, it's all under control. Take my advice, Miss Swan, only one of us knows what's best for Henry."

Emma silently clenched and unclenched her fist, well aware that her famed temper was a mere handful of degrees away from the boil. "Yeah. I'm starting to think you're right about that."

In any case, whilst the threat had been basically useless as threats went it _had_ pointed Emma to her first port of call once she'd dropped Henry off at school. Even if it had taken a good twenty minutes waiting outside a door to convince herself that, yeah, she genuinely _needed_ to do this. For Henry.

"Emma Swan." Archie Hopper, PhD in clinical psychology, stood as Emma finally entered. "I was just reading about you."

Emma closed the door behind her, but didn't move more than touching distance away. "Hi."

"Let me guess, you're here for a little help with post-traumatic stress," Dr Hopper joked, drawing a thin smile and an ever thinner laugh from Emma. _God,_ she hated shrinks. "That diagnosis was free, by the way."

"No, actually," Emma said, attempting to construct her least terrible Stepford smile and telling herself not to fidget, not to fidget, _not to fidget—_ "I'm here about Henry."

"Ah. I'm sorry—" And to the man's credit, he did actually _look_ sorry, "—but, but I really shouldn't divulge—patient confidentiality. You understand."

Emma nodded, way, way too stiffly. "I know. I'm sorry. Just—this fairytale... thing. Where everyone is a character in his book. That's..."

He inclined his head, encouraging her to continue, to say the word that had treacherously almost fallen out of her mouth—but no. Not that word.

"...unusual," she finished meekly, and immediately hated herself for it. _As if euphemism is any better, Swan._

Fortunately, Archie seemed sufficiently satisfied—or, probably more accurately, _in_ sufficiently _un_ satisfied—with her answer to nod and smile professionally.

"It is. I think—" he paused for a moment, evidently collecting his thoughts. "I think that these stories... they're his language. He has no way to express complex emotions so he's translating as best he can; this is how he communicates. And he's using this book—are you alright, Miss Swan?"

 _Breathe, Emma. Breathe._ She closed for an eyes for a moment, gathering herself as her heartbeat hammered in her ears. "I'm okay. Thanks. Go on."

"You look awfully pale—"

"I'm _fine_ , Dr Hopper," she interjected immediately, her voice suddenly whip-sharp, her eyes blazing—until she remembered herself. "Uh. Um. Something I ate. Sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you."

"It's quite alright, Emma," Archie said, thought his brow remained furrowed. "Though if this isn't the best time, then we can arrange an appointment."

"No, no," Emma immediately waved the suggestion away, still with that oh-so-brittle smile on her face. "Now's the best time." She breathed in, breathed out. "So, this book—Henry said he got it a month ago. Has he been seeing you longer than that?"

A long, somewhat awkward pause. "Um—yes he has."

"So it's his mother."

Archie frowned. "No, I don't think you—"

"Regina." This time, Emma didn't even care that she was interrupting.

"Uh—" Okay, Emma was definitely straying close to that whole _patient confidentiality_ line now. "His mother is a—a very complicated woman. And over the years, her attempts to bring Henry closer have only backfired."

"I—oh. Okay." That _did_ explain a fair bit about the Mayor—even if Emma still thought she needed an aggressive dosage of chill pills.

Archie exhaled audibly, then moved back to a filing cabinet behind him. "Why don't you take a look at the file," he said, producing a folder. Thick. Brown. Heavy. Filled with pages. Just like—

"No—no, I, I think that'll be okay," Emma stammered, already starting to back away to the door. Archie blinked at her, patently nonplussed.

"But, Emma—"

"I've got enough to go on," she blurted out, almost wrenching the door off its hinges in haste. "I'll—I'll be going now. Thanks for your help."

She only vaguely heard Archie call out his goodbye behind her as she fled the room.

* * *

A questionably-legal drive home, three glasses of water and an asprin later, Emma was laid out on the bed, feeling her heart rate gradually come down from its dizzying heights (in a quite literal sense).

 _Fuck._

That had been—well, _complete trainwreck_ would have been too charitable. She'd gone there to help Henry with _his_ problems, that he was facing _right now_. Instead she'd gotten entirely swept up in her own stupid, _stupid_ issues from decades back, when she was now supposedly twenty-eight and, at least in theory, a fully functioning adult, as opposed to the comprehensive failure of a human being she felt like right now.

She had almost chastised herself into driving back to Dr Hopper's office and actually getting the file when her plans were brought to an immediate and shuddering halt by Regina's second hit.

"Seriously, Graham. I don't even _have_ the file."

"Sorry, Emma, but attempted burglary—still a crime. Turn to your right, please."

She rolled her eyes and rotated sullenly to her right, not even blinking when the camera flashed.

Still. As frame-jobs went, this was singularly inept—and Emma had seen some _bad_ ones in her time—so the expressions on her mugshots ended up more vaguely annoyed than genuinely concerned. Even so, given that the Mayor had her hands in everything—Graham's words—she hadn't seen an easy out until Mary Margaret showed up with Henryto bail her out.

Maybe more kind than thoughtless. Much, much more kind than thoughtless.

In any case, it was a hit. An ineffectual one, to be sure, but it counted. Well, Emma had failed at _hit first—_ hit third, more like—but she still had _hit hard_ and _hit where it hurts_ up her sleeve.

It was one other thing she'd learned back in the group homes: it was all about the application. And she had more weapons in her armoury these days than mere fists and feet—as she demonstrated to Regina a few hours later.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Regina shrieked as Emma finished her handiwork on the honeycrisp apple tree, bearing down on Emma with impressive speed given the heels.

Emma dropped the chainsaw, smirking at a job well done. "Picking apples." A whole branch of them—yep, she'd definitely fulfilled the _hit where it hurts_ criteria. Although, if the expression on Regina's face was indication, the woman was anything but intimidated—if anything, the shadow of a predatory smirk on Regina's face indicated that she _relished_ the challenge, her chocolate-brown eyes burning, the lines of exposed neck and upper shoulder taut—

And Emma was not going down that particular road. Nope. Not here.

In any case, Emma wasn't entirely surprised to find that she'd been summarily booted from the bed-and-breakfast upon her return. She was marginally more surprised to see that her car had been booted as well; this was a move not exactly consistent with Regina's apparent goal to get her to leave town. Or maybe the woman was just trying to wind her up, prove a point?

"Miss Swan," Regina sighs over the phone when Emma asks her exactly that, adding a trilled laugh that makes every individual hair on Emma's neck stand on end. "Of course I was."

"What? That you're a pushy jerk of a Mayor?"

"I thought you could use a demonstration of my power. I'd be happy to continue, if you'd like."

Emma ground her teeth silently. "Yeah, well, piece of advice: booting the car? Not a great way to get me to leave."

"Oh, I'm aware. Am I right in saying your resolve to stay is only growing?"

She snorted, opening the door of her Bug to dump her leather jacket. "You have no idea."

"Well, then, I think it's time we made peace. Why don't you drive over to my office—" And Emma just _had_ to slam the door with a little extra force, because _seriously,_ "—or walk. Whatever suits you."

The upshot of the exchange was that by five minutes to five in the afternoon, Emma found herself in the Mayor's office, holding peace talks to conclude what had been a very, very strange war. She tried her best not to think about the desecrated tree just outside the window, instead focussing on the jet-black marble columns; the perfectly polished floor; the total lack of anything approaching colour; the way the room seemed to focus in on the sole desk and the high-backed chair behind it, almost throne-like—

She swallowed, raising her knees up so she could hold them loosely against her torso. She ignored the reproving glare Regina gave her as a result.

"I'd like to start by apologising, Miss Swan."

Not one, but two raised eyebrows. "What?"

"I just have to accept the reality that you want to be here."

 _Ten points for Mayor Obvious._ "That's right. I do."

"And that you're here to take my son from me."

Emma widened her eyes briefly, startled. "Okay. Let's be clear. I have no intention from taking him from anyone." Jesus, she'd grown up in _group homes—_ Regina may have been weapons-grade bitchy, but as far as Emma could tell, the kid had three meals a day, a room of his own and was attending a half-decent school; the works, as far as Emma was concerned.

"Then why are you here?" Regina asked, her voice softening—and for the first time, Emma saw what perhaps, maybe, possibly could be hesitation and... _fear?_

She felt bad about questioning Regina's love for her son already—although the expression of said love could use a bit of work. A _lot_ of work. Well, maybe with this peace they were hammering out, they could work on that.

She sighed. "Look. I know I'm not a mother, I think that's pretty self-evident. But I did have him and I—look. I grew up in foster care, alright?" She frowned a little at Regina's complete lack of registered surprise, but continued anyway. "I just want to make sure his childhood is less shitty than mine was."

"Of course it's _less shitty_ ," Regina replied sleekly, enunciating the last two words with notable disgust. Or delight. Emma couldn't tell which. "He has a _mother_ , one who has raised him since—"

"And I get that, but—"

"Please don't talk over the top of me, Miss Swan."

 _You shouldn't talk while others are talking, Emma._

Emma blinked. "Sorry."

"As I was saying," Regina continued smoothly, as if the interruption had never occurred. "Henry already has a mother. One who has raised him since he was a little boy."

"I get that. I told you, I'm not trying to take him away. I just want to make sure he's okay, and the more you try to push me out, the more I want to be here. Especially after seeing how... troubled he is."

Regina furrowed her brow. "You think he's troubled?"

 _Shit._ Wrong word. It had been a long day, and Emma wasn't exactly careful at the best of times. "Well, he's in therapy," she said, quieter than she'd intended. She ran a hand through her hair, well aware that she was already dancing a tightrope and her balance was slipping. "I mean, he thinks everyone is a fairytale character."

"And you don't?"

 _No, of course I don't, she's completely delusional—_

Another blink. "It's not about me. I mean, it's not like he actually _saw_ any of this, he just read it in his book of his and became convinced it was all true." She sighed. "It _sounds_ completely crazy, but—"

"You think I'm crazy?"

She jumped to her feet in an instant, wheeling around, and saw Henry standing in the doorway, his face pale, his eyes widening by the second, his lip beginning to tremble—

Her heart plummeted. _Oh, no. No no no._

"Henry—I didn't mean—"

"You lied to me. You _lied_ to me!"

He fled.

"Henry!" She spun around, panic already starting to seep through her veins—only to see the Mayor's calm, collected smirk, her chin raised, her posture unchanged.

And it hit her: she wasn't here to make peace at all.

"Your move," Regina drawled, and Emma ran.

* * *

She decided not to run straight to Henry. One because she didn't know where he actually was, two—and more importantly—because there was no way she could look him in the eye right now.

She didn't actually know where she was going. To seek solace in her old friend, the shot glass, maybe— _fuck._ How had she convinced herself for even a moment that she could be anything to Henry except the _woman who gave her up for adoption—_ and a damn good thing too, given how she couldn't get that _image_ out of her head, of Henry's face twisted with betrayal—

This was a mistake. This whole _thing_ , coming here, barging into Henry's life like so: a mistake. One that needed to end, right now, for Henry's sake. She needed to get the fuck out of this town, get back to her life, remind herself _why_ she'd given up Henry in the first place and hope that the reminder of her existence would convince his mom—his _actual_ mom—to unwind a bit.

Not that Emma could count on that, not that she deserved to.

Apparently said mom had agreed, because by the time Emma returned half-dazed back to her car, the boot had been removed. Thankful that Regina had made at least _this_ part easy, she got straight in, turned the ignition, and set off immediately.

She was less than a mile from the edge of town when she remembered: Mary Margaret's bail money. _Shit._ Skipping town without paying back _that_ would be ironic, to say the least.

Half an hour later, she was knocking on the door of a simple second-floor wooden loft. Mary Margaret answered immediately, the surprise at seeing Emma open on her face as she did so.

"Hey. Just wanted to say thank you," Emma said—mumbled, really—holding out an envelope for Mary Margaret to collect. "And, um, pay you back the bail money."

Mary Margaret took the envelope, but continued to study Emma with pensive eyes, as if reading between the lines of Emma's exhausted and likely miserable face. It was a state which had Emma feeling distinctly uncomfortable but also... _warm?_

"You look like you need to talk."

Emma entered without a word, silently grateful for the company. Mary Margaret, for her part, was increasingly proving to be almost entirely kind and not thoughtless in the slightest, based on the fact that _she too_ was making cocoa with—

"—cinnamon?" Had Emma driven into town with the words _I take my cocoa with cinnamon_ strapped to her head? Though in fairness, the other instance had been her birth son, and—and she was most definitely not going to think about that right now.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mary Margaret said bashfully. "I should have asked; it's a little quirk of mine. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, thanks." She sipped the drink, savouring the unorthodox taste, before recalling something that had been needling away at her all day. "When you bailed me out, you said you trusted me. Why?"

"It's strange. Ever since you arrived here, I've had the oddest feeling like we've met before," Mary Margaret explained. Unconsciously, Emma ran a finger over her bracelet. "And, I know it's crazy—"

Emma winced. "Please don't."

Mary Margaret frowned momentarily—then realised what exactly she meant. "Oh—oh, I'm sorry, Emma, I wasn't aware—that was thoughtless of me, I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Emma said, in a blunt tone of voice which suggested that it was anything but. "Just—you aren't the first one to have made that mistake today."

"What do you—oh. _Oh._ " Mary Margaret's otherwise-kindly face was a mixture of shock and horror and—Emma looked away. " _Emma._ "

"It was an accident!" Emma blurted out, the dam walls that had been holding her misery back for the last hour bursting at last, something about the _openness_ of Mary Margaret's expression which had provided the final breach. "I—god, I would _never_ call him crazy, I just—I was stupid and..." Her words trailed off, and she rubbed her forehead. "I'm leaving. I shouldn't have come here in the first place."

The stunned look hasn't completely faded from Mary Margaret's face, but her voice remains sympathetic. "But you don't actually _think_ he's crazy, do you?"

"No. _Never._ " It's the firmest her voice has sounded all afternoon. "But now _he_ thinks that I think that."

"Emma." Mary Margaret reached across, clasped one of Emma's hands in her own. "You made... you made a mistake, true, but one that's very easy to make. Without being in Henry's shoes, you couldn't know—"

"No, see, that's the thing." Emma mumbled, her eyes trained somewhere between the edge of the table and her own midriff. "I know exactly what Henry's going through right now, but I messed up anyway."

The thumb that had been drawing miniscule circles on the back of Emma's hand abruptly stopped. "Emma..."

"I mean, maybe not exactly, but—yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Emma said brusquely. "It was a long time ago now."

"Do you want to talk about it? If you're okay with that, of course," Mary Margaret added hastily, her cheeks colouring slightly.

"It's fine, I don't even remember most of it anyway." She sighed, before continuing—there was _something_ about this woman which _compelled_ her to lower all those walls she'd spent so long constructing around her. "Okay, long story short: when I was six, a friend showed me... some things. She gave me this bracelet, actually," Emma added, peeling back her shift to reveal the glimmering silver around her right wrist.

Mary Margaret grasped her arm, holding the bracelet up to the light. "It's beautiful."

Emma couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. Anyway, when I talked to other people about what I'd seen, no one believed me at all. Thought I was making it up at first, then—you can work out the rest."

Two hands this time, enclosing around one of her own. "I'm sorry."

"You said that."

"It's worth saying more than once." A brief pause, another pensive stare. "What happened to her?"

"My friend?" Emma swallowed, tensed. "I don't know. I haven't seen her in—god, a long time." _Twenty-two years._ "I don't even remember what she looks like. All I know is that she was called Regina."

Mary Margaret raised her eyebrows, which meant that one of them all but vanished into her hairline. "Like the Mayor?"

Emma chortled. "Yeah. A bit of a personality difference, though."

Yet, even so...

 _It's strange. Ever since you arrived here, I've had the oddest feeling like we've met before._

She drank the rest of her cocoa in one go.


End file.
